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The "Palestinian Martyrdom" Effect on Arab-Israeli Negotiations
(Media Line-Jerusalem Post) Charles Bybelezer - Israel has long slammed the Palestinian Authority for naming squares, parks and summer camps after "martyrs" in order to indoctrinate a generation of youth with Jew-hatred. According to Dr. Irwin J. Mansdorf, who heads the Israeli-Arab studies program at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and conducts research on the political-psychological dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "the notion of 'resistance,' essentially a vow to destroy Israel," is pervasive in Palestinian culture. He believes that the Palestinian leadership must therefore launch a "cultural reeducation" program as a prerequisite to achieving peace. "The Jewish People suffered the greatest genocide at the hands of the Germans, and yet two generations later the relationship between Israel and Germany is very strong. If you deny the Holocaust there you go to jail. When you work towards a common goal, eventually the hatred goes away....The Palestinians are still focused on liberation even while they have had multiple opportunities to gain statehood." Mansdorf stresses that there remains so much cultural reinforcement in the Palestinian territories that any rapprochement, while not impossible, will take a long time. This, more than anything else, accounts for the lack of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front.